[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 79 (Monday, June 19, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H4212-H4218]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       30-SOMETHING WORKING GROUP

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 2005, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Ryan) is recognized for 
60 minutes.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to be 
here to open up for another discussion with the 30-something Working 
Group. We will be joined later by our friends from Florida who have 
been rooting on the Miami Heat in the last few days and are very 
excited about some key victories. So Mr. Meek and Ms. Wasserman Schultz 
will be here soon.
  The issue tonight, Mr. Speaker, for all of us as Americans, I 
believe, is one of the most pressing issues our country has faced in a 
long time, and that is the issue of our national debt and our annual 
deficits that we are running here in the United States of America. We 
have always prided ourselves in the United States of being able to 
balance

[[Page H4213]]

our budgets and pay our bills, and making sure that we were like the 
average family in the United States that had to deal with paying bills, 
making sure at the end of the month we at least broke even, maybe even 
had a little bit to save.
  Throughout the course of the 1990s, under the leadership of President 
Clinton, and in 1993 with a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, 
we passed a budget resolution, as Democrats, that balanced the budget 
and led to one of the greatest economic expansions in the history of 
the world, which lifted up millions of people, created 20 million new 
jobs, and led to prosperity for everybody in the country.
  We put in place PAYGO rules, which said that you can't spend any 
money that you don't either raise taxes to spend it or you cut spending 
somewhere, but what you don't do is you don't go out and borrow it. You 
don't go to China or Japan or OPEC and borrow the money. You make sure 
we have the money that we generated ourselves, and we pay our bills and 
meet our obligations: Social Security, Medicare, veterans benefits, 
education, Pell Grants, health care, children's health care, or 
whatever the priorities may be, we would have the money to pay for it.
  So the discussion tonight, Mr. Speaker, is of an issue that is 
pressing not only to the 30-something generation, because we are going 
to be around to pay the bills for the reckless spending, and our kids 
and our grandkids, the next couple of generations coming, but you can't 
get something for nothing. And right now the Republican House and 
Senate and President Bush are basically living on a credit card at the 
expense of the next generation of Americans who are going to be forced 
to pay the bill.
  Mr. Speaker, I know you have seen this chart before, but it is 
indicative of the situation we are in in the United States of America. 
In 224 years, from 1776 to the year 2000, all of the Presidents and all 
of the Congresses borrowed a total of $1.01 trillion from foreign 
sources, foreign interests, in 224 years. The current President and the 
current Republican House and the current Republican Senate have 
managed, from 2001 to 2005, to borrow more money from foreign interests 
than all the previous Presidents in the previous 224 years. This is 
staggering.
  And you may ask, Mr. Speaker, well, what are the 30-somethings 
talking about this for? We are supposed to talk about issues, Mr. 
Speaker, that affect kids and 20-somethings and 30-somethings, and 
young families. This is the most pressing issue for the next generation 
of Americans because we are going to be the ones left footing the bill.
  When tax rates go up for the 30-somethings or the 20-somethings, or 
the kids that are in college or in grade school now, because of this 
reckless borrowing, it is irresponsible. It is not in the public 
interest. It is not in the interest of the next generation, Mr. 
Speaker. And, therefore, it is an issue for the 30-something Democratic 
Working Group to talk about.
  So it may be $1 trillion. Where are we getting it from, Mr. Speaker? 
Look at this picture of America, and it shows exactly where we are 
getting it: $682 billion from Japan; $249 billion from China, the U.K., 
the Caribbean, Taiwan, Germany, Korea, Canada; and $67.8 billion we 
have borrowed from OPEC countries. OPEC countries.
  Can you imagine, in this day and age, with the cost of gas and with 
the price of a barrel of oil, that the United States has been so 
reckless and so irresponsible that we would go out and put ourselves in 
the position where we have to borrow money from OPEC and borrow money 
from China? This has a lot of different effects. This is just like when 
you get a loan for your house. You look at your house, and your house 
costs $110,000, and then when you take out a loan, you look at what you 
are going to end up paying to actually get your $110,000 house, and it 
is thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars more.
  This is what we are doing here. We may borrow $682 billion from 
Japan, we may borrow $250 billion from China, but how much more do we 
have to pay on interest, Mr. Speaker? That money is not going to be 
going to other priorities here in the United States of America. So 
China, who has been wiping out the middle class of the United States of 
America, especially in Ohio and Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, 
Indiana and Connecticut, and a lot of the other areas of the country, 
China is loaning us money. We pay them the interest on it, they take 
the interest, make some money off the Americans, and invest that back 
into their state-owned companies that will compete directly with 
American manufacturers here in the United States of America.
  Now, I know we are in a global economy, and nobody wants to say that 
we are not going to trade. We all know that is ridiculous. We all know 
it is going to happen. But to borrow money from a country that is going 
to take the interest that you pay them on it and invest it back in to 
compete against you makes it even more unfair than the situation 
already is. You are putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage. It 
is irresponsible, and it is reckless because we have to pay the 
interest, but you are also aiding and abetting your competition every 
day.
  Again, here is what we borrowed. The increase in the national debt, 
$1.18 trillion; and of that, $1.16 was borrowed from foreign interests, 
Ms. Wasserman Schultz, and only $.02 trillion borrowed from domestic 
interests.
  And let me make one more point before the Miami Heat takes the floor 
again.
  This is the kicker, Mr. Speaker. All of that money that we borrow and 
that we have to pay interest on, here is what it looks like in the 2007 
budget authority. This is billions of dollars. The big red bar on the 
left is what we have to pay in interest, interest on the money that we 
are borrowing.
  So this money that the American people send down here and we spend it 
on education and health care and this and that, the biggest portion 
goes to just paying interest on the debt; and China and these other 
countries will take that money and reinvest it back into their state-
owned, Communist-run facilities.
  But look how it compares to what we are spending on education or on 
homeland security or on veterans. This is really the icing on the cake. 
This is what makes it so irresponsible. Not only are we putting the 
burden on our kids, but there are current investments that we cannot 
make because we are forced to spend all this money on just the interest 
on the debt.

                              {time}  2000

  I yield to the Miami Heat.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Speaker, I am going to wait on that little 
celebration until our good friend from Florida joins us and we can do 
the happy dance together on the Heat's amazing victory last night, and 
I am sure the Speaker enjoyed that fantastic victory last night as 
well. So we will regale you with the success of the Heat when the 
gentleman from Florida joins us.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I could interrupt my friend, it was very reminiscent 
of the glory days of the Boston Celtics. In the old Boston Garden and 
in the new Garden they hang, I think, 16 flags representing world 
championships won by the Boston Celtics, and I hope at some point in 
time the Miami Heat does as well.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. If the gentleman would yield, do the Celtics still 
have a team?
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Of course. They are in the rebuilding mode.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I was a Larry Bird fan from way back.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We have begun a proud tradition in south 
Florida, and we are looking forward to equaling over time the amazing 
success of the Boston Celtics. Having already experienced the joy of a 
national championship by the University of Florida Fighting Gators 
basketball team, basketball is alive and well in Florida. As you can 
see, we have some pretty good players down our way.
  But I want to jump off because Mr. Ryan did refer to the billions in 
debt, and you went through very eloquently, and I don't think people in 
America have a real idea, that is why I love that chart of the 
percentage of debt that each of those countries has of the United 
States.
  And when you graphically depict it across the entire country, it 
really, really drives the point home. But what I found, and I have a 
shorter tenure in

[[Page H4214]]

Congress than you and Mr. Meek and Mr. Delahunt do, going from the 
State legislature where we were dealing with millions more often than 
billions with a ``b,'' people would tell me it is hard to get their 
mind around what a billion is. It is such a big number; it is hard to 
grasp.
  So I came up, along with my staff's help, with this chart to 
graphically illustrate what a billion is. When we are talking about 
billions in debt and the interest payments are in the billions and they 
dwarf other priorities like homeland security and funding for our 
veterans and education, how much is a billion?
  A billion hours ago, for example, humans were making their first 
tools in the Stone Age. A billion seconds ago it was 1975, and the last 
American troops had pulled out of Vietnam.
  A billion minutes ago, it was 104 A.D. and the Chinese had first 
invented paper.
  If you take the definitions that the Republicans use when it comes to 
a billion, a billion dollars ago under the Republican leadership was 
only 3 hours and 32 minutes ago at the rate our government is currently 
spending money.
  So a billion used to be a really significant number that if you 
translate it into time was a very long time ago. But translated into 
time under Republican leadership, it was just a few hours ago.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. The issue here, and I love that chart because it 
does put everything into perspective, is that this outfit is leaving 
America worse off than they found it, and that is really upsetting. 
When you think about long term what we are going to have to deal with, 
what the 30-somethings and people with kids in college and grade 
school, what kind of country are you leaving these kids, that is what 
frustrates me. We have an obligation to make sure that we leave the 
garden patch a little nicer than we found it. And the debt, the war, 
you are strapping this next generation for generations. We are going to 
spend our entire life in public life or our generation's service to the 
country is going to be fixing the war in Iraq, balancing the budget, 
and trying to make ourselves competitive in a brutal global economy.
  It is frustrating, but it is the overarching theme that the 
Republican Senate and House and White House are leaving the country 
worse off than they found it.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. You are absolutely right, and a little more 
reality to translate what we are talking about here into everyday 
economics, if you look at the 2006 tax reconciliation bill and compare 
it to benefit by income for the benefit that was given or the 
equivalent of the benefit to the amount of income that an American 
taxpayer brings in, for example under the 2006 tax cut legislation that 
passed out of this House overwhelmingly with Republican votes, an 
average American taxpayer that makes between $10,000 and $20,000 a year 
would get back enough to buy a Slurpee. But if you make between $40,000 
and $50,000, you will get from the 2006 Republican tax cut bill about 
as much money to buy a gallon of gas.
  Now, if we are talking real benefits here, the real benefits and who 
got the most out of the Republican tax cut bill this year, the reality 
is if you made more than $1 million, you get the equivalent of a 
Hummer.
  I don't know, if I am talking to the folks in my district, and I know 
the folks in Youngstown, Ohio, and the people on the Cape and in the 
Boston area, they probably are not that interested in getting enough 
money back to buy a Slurpee. Something tells me, and at least when I go 
home, and I have a district that includes a lot of areas that have 
people of means, and I can tell you when I go to community events and 
bring my kids to the soccer game and drive my kids around in our 
minivan, the people in the wealthiest parts of my district are coming 
up and saying keep the money because the needs we have in America are 
overwhelming. They are saying, you know what, I don't need the Slurpee, 
I can buy my own Hummer. If you are making more than a million dollars, 
you can buy your own Hummer.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And it is not like we have the money to give the 
person making a million dollars.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We don't. We have an $8 trillion deficit.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. And where do we get the money to give the money to 
the millionaire to go buy a Hummer? We have to go borrow it. That makes 
no sense.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Yet the rank and file Republicans and the 
Republican leadership continue to try to profess that they are the 
party of fiscal responsibility. It is hilarious. It really is.
  In the legislature in Florida, we used to talk about statements like 
that not being able to pass the straight-face test. It doesn't pass the 
straight-face test. How do they say it without smirking? How do they 
say it without crossing their fingers and putting their fingers behind 
their back? We should check behind the backs of all of the Members when 
they are speaking on the floor here about how fiscally responsible they 
are because I am sure they are all like this. They can't cross 
themselves enough. It is really over the top.
  I was taught to tell the truth by my parents. I'm incredulous how 
some of these Members get away with claiming fiscal responsibility.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me give a very concrete example that was reported 
Saturday in my hometown newspaper, one of them, the Boston Globe. The 
headline read: ``Cost of college piling debt on Massachusetts 
families.''
  ``Massachusetts families fell a total of $562 million short of being 
able to pay for college in the State last year, according to State 
officials, highlighting the struggle for families to afford higher 
education in Massachusetts.''
  Now that $562 million represented the portion of college costs a 
family cannot afford to pay that is not covered by Federal, State or 
institutional grants or loans. And when aid falls short, many students 
make up the difference with private loans they have trouble repaying.
  Here is a quote from a young student: ``My dad had to take money out 
of his 401(k) twice because during the semester we weren't given enough 
in grants and student loans to meet the amount we had to pay.''
  The article goes on to say that students are covering the funding gap 
with higher-interest private loans, credit card debt, and too many 
hours of work outside of school.
  Now I sat on the Administrative Law Subcommittee of the Committee on 
the Judiciary where for 5 or 6 years we reviewed the proposal for the 
so-called bankruptcy law. I was always struck by the number of 
solicitations that were going to students to utilize their credit 
cards. Some would send a check.
  I remember in the debate bringing a blown-up posterboard of a check 
that my daughter received for $2,500. And as part of the solicitation, 
there was an opening salutation that said: ``Have a good spring 
break.''
  Well, the truth is that those credit card solicitations were putting 
in the hands of students credit cards that carried with them 18 
percent, 22 percent, 26 percent, 30 percent interest rates. So what we 
are doing is not only creating a culture where credit card debt is an 
acceptable norm for paying significant loans, but we are graduating our 
students with average debts of about $10,000 on which they are paying 
these exorbitant credit card rates.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. In the Democratic proposal to take the country in a 
new direction, one of the key components, and I am glad you brought 
this up, two basic provisions, cutting interest rates in half for the 
borrowers in most needs on subsidized student loans from a fixed rate 
of 6.8 percent to a fixed percent rate of 3.4 percent, and cutting 
rates on parent loans for undergraduate students from a fixed rate of 
8.5 percent to a fixed rate of 4.25 percent.
  This is about running the government and what are your priorities. 
Now it amazes me, Mr. Delahunt, it amazes me how this Republican-led 
Congress can go to great lengths to make sure that the oil industry 
gets their corporate subsidies to the tune of $13 billion, how the 
health care industry will get $20 billion in corporate welfare, and how 
tax cuts go predominantly to the people who make more that $1 million a 
year, as we have seen tonight.

                              {time}  2015

  But yet, they refuse to try to enact proposals that the Democrats 
have

[[Page H4215]]

tried to get in place over the past several years, time and time again, 
in the Education Committee, in the Ways and Means Committee, in the 
Appropriations Committee, in the Judiciary Committee, whatever it takes 
to try to get these proposals enacted. And we run up against the stone 
wall of Republican ideology that is hellbent on making sure the 
wealthiest people in the world, in the United States, get their 
corporate welfare at the expense of average citizens.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. I would suggest that this particular study illustrates 
exactly what you said. Rather than cap loans that students can take 
out, or that parents can take out in their behalf, what we are doing is 
forcing these young people, our future, to go to private sources such 
as credit cards, and private lenders at rates that would make the Mafia 
blush. They ought not to be called interest rates. They ought to be 
called the vig. That's what the Mafia charges for a loan.
  So what happens? We graduate young people, and for years they are 
carrying around this debt that is impossible if they are going to go on 
and get married and have a family of their own. It is like graduating 
from college and having a mortgage that you are paying off at some 
ridiculous rate of interest. And forget about owning a home, forget 
about taking a chance and initiating your own small business if that be 
your choice.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Welcome to the race of life, and let the Federal 
Government hook a piano on your back.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Look at this. To illustrate what you are 
talking about here, you have got interest rates that are bad enough in 
terms of interest people have to pay in order to get on top of their 
college loans.
  But college tuition itself has gone up. This is under the President, 
since President Bush has taken office. College tuition itself has gone 
up 40 percent.
  Then you take a look at gas prices which have gone up 47 percent. You 
take a look at health care costs, gone up 55 percent. This is the 
reality for Americans today. But median household income has dropped by 
4 percent. I mean, dropped. So how are Americans supposed to make up 
this difference? What are they supposed to do when it comes to the 
income that they are bringing in and the everyday costs that are a part 
of their life? This is, like, for a mom who has got a bunch of kids, 
and she is trying to figure out how many of them she is going to be 
able to actually feed, which one do you let go? Which one is not 
important? Higher education? Putting gas in your car? How are you going 
to get to work? How are you going to get to the grocery store? How are 
you going to help your family day to day?
  How about health care? What happens, we all know, because everyone's 
heard the story. I have constituents who don't even think about this 
stuff every day who can tell me, you know, most of the people that they 
know who don't have health insurance have to wait `til they are so sick 
that they have to take their family member or themselves to the 
emergency room so that they can get primary health care. I mean, which 
one do you eliminate? Which one is not important if your income is 
plummeting?
  Now, let's take a couple of other things that have happened under the 
Bush administration. You have got the typical family paying $1,200 more 
a year for health insurance. You have housing that is the least 
affordable that it has been in 14 years. I mean, just to give you an 
example, in the community that I live in, I represent south Florida, 
the average price of a house in the two counties that I represent is 
over $300,000. That is not affordable. I mean, that just puts home 
ownership completely out of bounds for, never mind the average person, 
even somebody making a decent living.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. One can only imagine that young person graduating from 
college with this debt.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. But this is the 30-something Working Group, 
Mr. Delahunt. We identify, we are not, well, some of us are not, that 
far from having been through exactly the situation.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But being 30-something, things were better.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Of course.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. For you when you were 20-something than your 30-
something.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Delahunt, let me just tell you. When my 
husband and I got married, we got married in 1991. And I was 24 and my 
husband was 26. Within several months of getting married, we were able 
to buy our first home. We both had health insurance. We were not 
worried about how to put gas in our car, and neither one of us had 
college tuition debt.
  Fast forward to 15 years later, because I just celebrated my 15th 
wedding anniversary, and someone starting out just like we did can't 
afford a house in the community that I live in and represent. Literally 
they are driving their car around and have to pay more than $50 every 
single time. We couldn't have afforded that on the incomes that we 
made. We could back in 1991, but not, back in 1991 we could afford gas 
prices because they were in the $1 range, a little over a dollar. How 
are they supposed to do it? It is unfathomable.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. But the point that you are speaking to, I think 
everybody understands, is that the country is heading in the wrong 
direction. In the space of 15 years, people that were in your 
situation, as you just described it with your husband, newly married, 
in a short period of time being able to afford a down payment, no 
tuition debt, and prospects for a bright future. That is not happening 
today. And a lot of our friends can understand it because they continue 
to talk about, well, the economy is growing. I guess the question is 
who is it growing for? It is not growing for the middle class. It 
certainly isn't. It isn't growing for low income. In fact, it is not 
even growing for those who are affluent. It is growing for the 
superwealthy.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. What plan have you heard of from the other 
side of the aisle, from our good friends on the other side? Where is 
their economic plan? Where is their plan to fix it? What bills have 
they passed that reduce the deficit, that help Americans struggling to 
pay for gas, that help them pay for higher education? I mean, is it all 
you are on your own? It is all about you, and we are from the 
Government, and we are not here to help.
  We have a plan. We have a new direction for America which is laid out 
right there. I hear a lot of the Republicans on the other side of the 
aisle accusing us of not having a plan. We have got one. Where is 
theirs? Because if we keep going in this direction, we are headed for 
more deficit and more of our citizens twisting in the wind.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Their plan, Mr. Speaker, has been implemented. We 
are now experiencing the results of their plan, cause and effect. They 
issued, they administered, they proposed, they passed year after year 
after year. Democrats, we couldn't stop anything if we wanted to. Went 
through the House, went through the Senate, the President had the 
signing ceremony, brought everybody behind him, had 50 pens and was 
passing them out to all the leadership. And the end result is that 
chart that you just had up: higher gas prices, higher college tuition 
costs, higher health care costs, lower median income, $9 billion lost 
in Iraq, nobody knows where it is. We are building roads and hospitals 
and schools in Iraq while we are cutting funding here. Katrina, we are 
paying people's divorce lawyer bills. I mean, come on.

  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. We are paying for funerals for people who 
didn't die as a result of the hurricane.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And yet we have not begun to even address the real 
issues of rebuilding the Gulf States, of taking care of the people in 
Mississippi and Louisiana, and allowing the insurance companies in 
those States to tell people that, sorry, you are not covered, despite 
the fact that they were told early on. Thankfully, we have leaders, and 
I am particularly proud of someone like a Gene Taylor and others from 
the Gulf States that stand up and speak to these issues, and Members on 
the other side of the aisle, for that matter. I was listening to 
Senator Lott just recently speaking about this issue.
  But the truth is, you are right. The consequences of the plan of the 
Bush administration and the Bush Congress has resulted in $3 per gallon 
of gas, a deficit that is a Hall of Fame record, a dependence on China 
and Japan and

[[Page H4216]]

the United Kingdom and OPEC countries to finance our debt, a decline of 
the median income for a middle-class family in this country, and 
housing that is not affordable today for most Americans, and as you 
suggested, Tim, a health care system that is, to call it a system is 
hyperbole. It just is not a system. And this is what we have.
  We finally have seen the plan, and the plan is being rejected by most 
Americans because it is clear that it is taking this country in the 
wrong direction, and if it continues in this way, we will become a 
second-tier Nation.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Delahunt, you are absolutely right. The 
contrast here is that when it comes to actually improving the economy 
and beginning to go in a new direction, the Republicans have no plan at 
all. More of the same. More deficits, more tax cuts for the wealthiest 
among us, more people who are going to go uninsured, more of the same; 
as opposed to the Democrats' new direction for America, Mr. Ryan, that 
you have on the easel next to you.
  And I think it would be useful to take, Mr. Speaker, the Members 
through what the Democrats' plan is if we take the majority back of 
this institution and the things that we would implement if we were able 
to actually implement an agenda.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, this is a comprehensive agenda, and 
what I love most about what the Democrats are going to do when they get 
in charge, our agenda is integrated into creating a government that 
works in the 21st century. Unfortunately, our friends on the other side 
are like dinosaurs. They keep trying to work and run the government 
like it is 1950. It is 2006. We have new technologies, new 
communications, a new ability to administer government, and the 
Republicans are caught in the stone age like dinosaurs, unable to run 
the government.
  Look at Katrina. Look at the war. Look at all the issues that we have 
talked about. It is their inability to run.
  So what I like about what the Democrats are doing is we are taking a 
very new, cutting-edge, progressive approach to administering 
government. And it starts with making health care more affordable. We 
are going to use the ability, buying power to make sure we eliminate 
the major influence of drug companies and HMOs, corporate welfare, 
basically, that the Republicans gave to the health care industry; get 
lower drug costs, encourage competition, and make sure that we invest 
in the stem cell and other medical research. We have cutting-edge 
technologies that we are that close to getting to, and the Republicans 
are cutting the budget for research.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. And, Mr. Ryan, don't forget. We have a plan 
that would allow small businesses to pool their resources and pool 
their risk that, if we were allowed to implement it, and if we were in 
the majority in this institution, we would pass legislation that would 
do that without totally eliminating the benefits that are part of these 
health insurance packages.
  In the Republicans' legislation that they crammed through the 
Congress with a rubber-stamp vote that they typically do, their 
solution was to pass bare-bones insurance legislation that basically 
provides coverage for almost nothing. And you would basically dumb down 
any insurance policy. Some people might say, well, some insurance is 
better than none. But when you have the second leading cause of death 
for women in this country, being breast cancer, and in most States 
mammograms are a mandated insurance benefit, their plan would allow the 
elimination of that required coverage. If you implement it and their 
plan became law, we would ensure that fewer women would be able to get 
mammograms, and the incidences of breast cancer would go up.

                              {time}  2030

  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Right. And what I really love is what John Tanner's 
bill is doing, and John Tanner is a Democrat from Tennessee, a Blue Dog 
Democrat, and this is just good stuff. We are going to audit the 
government. When we get back in charge, we are going to throw 
everything on the table, and we are going to audit everything. We are 
just going to start over, figure out why we are wasting so much money. 
And Mr. Tanner and I had a great conversation, Mr. Speaker, last week. 
And we are going to have Mr. Tanner down here because he needs to 
participate in the 30-something group to explain to the House of 
Representatives just exactly what his bill does. But in a thumbnail 
sketch, it audits all of the branches of government. It audits all of 
the agencies of government. And we can squeeze wasteful spending out of 
the government right now and invest that money into things that matter.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. And let us remember, Mr. Speaker, who is running the 
government. It is true, Mr. Speaker, that this administration for the 
past 6 years has been run by a Republican President, a Republican Vice 
President. All of the Cabinet members, with one exception, are 
Republican. The House has been run by the majority party, which is the 
Republican Party. On the Senate side, Mr. Speaker, the majority party 
has been Republican. So what we are seeing and what we are getting is 
Republicanism, but not really the traditional mainstream Republican 
Party that has made significant contributions to this great country.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Teddy Roosevelt.
  Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I want to know where all the Members 
from 1994 went when they were saying we have got to run government like 
a business, we need a balanced budget amendment, we cannot afford all 
this wasteful spending. Democrats now have a bill that we are going to 
put forth before this Congress when we take over of how to run this 
place like a business. Now, we realize it is not a business; so there 
are things we are limited to do. But there is no excuse why we cannot 
audit this government and find the waste and invest it into math, 
science, education, health. We cannot keep going to the taxpayers and 
asking them for more and more money.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Can I just digress for one moment?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Please.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. We had a 10-hour, I don't want to call it a debate 
because it was not a debate.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Special Order.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. It was a long Special Order about Iraq. And I thought 
what was particularly striking was, as people spoke even on the other 
side, the references that were made specifically to Secretary Rumsfeld.
  Now, if you had a CEO of a business that was running the business 
into the ground, that was being exposed by his own subordinates again 
and again and again, what would happen in the private sector? And just 
look back at what the administration had to say.
  I mean, I always think of what the former Secretary of State, Colin 
Powell, had to say about the Vice President. He said the Vice President 
was so obsessed with attacking Iraq, that it was as if he had war 
fever. Well, you know, the problem with fever is that you become 
delusional and you see things or hear things that aren't necessarily 
there no matter how true you want them to be. I mean, it was the Vice 
President himself who said that we were going to be greeted as 
liberators. I think that lasted for maybe 1\1/2\ days. Rumsfeld himself 
said that the war wasn't going to last any more than 6 months. Wrong. 
His Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, said that Iraq could pay for its own 
reconstruction from its oil revenue. Wrong. We were told that the 
administration had a coherent plan for reconstruction and bringing 
peace to a nation that had experienced the brutality of a Saddam 
Hussein, a coherent plan. Wrong. It just goes on and on.
  The truth is that the administration's incompetence, absolute rank 
incompetence, has set back our efforts to deal with terrorism all over 
this planet.
  And you don't have to take our words for their incompetence. If our 
staffer is present, I would like to just put on some of the quotes, not 
coming from a partisan Member of Congress, but from people who served 
their country. Here is one coming now.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We do not have the military one.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, this is as good, I guess.
  The former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich, speaking about this 
Republican Congress, can you read that for me.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Sure. What former House Speaker, leader of

[[Page H4217]]

the Republican revolution on this Republican Congress said, he cited a 
series of blunders. You referred to our Republican colleagues' 
incompetence a minute ago, Mr. Delahunt. Well, former Speaker Gingrich 
``cited a series of blunders under Republican rule from failures in the 
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina,'' which we have been talking about this 
evening, ``to mismanagement of the war in Iraq. He . . . said the 
government has squandered billions of dollars in Iraq.''
  And our good friend Mr. Tanner, whom you just talked about, and the 
audit he wants to accomplish once we are in the majority, he analogized 
that legislation to a mechanic looking under the hood because that is 
really what is necessary here. I think I would want to make sure I had 
some Purell with me after we looked under the hood when the Republicans 
are put aside and maybe have a mask just so that I wouldn't become 
infected by some of the mismanagement and gross incompetence that has 
clearly occurred here under Republican rule.
  I mean, a deficit of more than $8 trillion, a debt that is more in 
the time that President Bush has been in office than all previous 42 
Presidents combined, a war in Iraq that has created a cesspool in a 
country that was in bad shape to start with, but that literally the 
situation that they are in now in Iraq with the terrorism on the rise 
that exists there was created by this President and the Republicans' 
war.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. To go back to the point that Mr. Ryan was making 
relative to if this were a business, if this were a business, which 
brought me to the point of the incompetence specifically of the 
Secretary of Defense, and to think despite call after call for his 
resignation, would this have ever happened in the private sector?
  And as I was saying, this is not your words, our words, my words. 
Here is retired Army Major General Paul Eaton. This is back in March. 
He is speaking about the Secretary of Defense, and these are, again, 
his words: ``He has shown himself incompetent strategically, 
operationally, and tactically and is, far more than anyone, responsible 
for what has happened to our important mission in Iraq . . . Mr. 
Rumsfeld must step down.''
  Now, it is okay, I guess, for the President to ignore those words, 
but if we had a Congress that took its oversight role seriously, I 
would have expected that once those words appeared in print that the 
appropriate committee of jurisdiction, possibly the Armed Services 
Committee, and I know you serve on that, Mr. Ryan, would have 
immediately issued a request to Major General Paul Eaton to come before 
it to give his opinion and his views. Did we see that?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, when you look at 
what happened in the late 1990s with what the Republican committees 
were willing to investigate going on in the executive branch, what they 
were willing to investigate under President Clinton, they spent $40 
million chasing him around, and now you are not even willing to provide 
some oversight for the war or Katrina or any of these other things? It 
is not a witch hunt. These guys are saying we are screwing up, let us 
fix it.
  I yield to my friend.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. The silence coming from the Congress is just 
overwhelming. There has not been a single committee in the House of 
Representatives that invited General Paul Eaton to come before it and 
testify. Talk about a rubber stamp.
  Well, now here is retired Marine Lieutenant General Gregory Newbold. 
He had these words to say in April: ``My sincere view is that the 
commitment of our forces to this fight was done with the casualness and 
swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to 
execute these missions or bury the results.''
  Has there been a request from one single committee of this House to 
Marine Lieutenant General Newbold to come before us to listen to what 
he has to say about the incompetence of the civilian leadership of 
Secretary Rumsfeld? Not one invitation that I am aware of.
  And here is retired General John Batiste, again, speaking about the 
Secretary of Defense. This was reported in The Washington Post on April 
13: ``We went to war with a flawed plan that didn't account for the 
hard work to build the peace after we took down the regime. We also 
served under a Secretary of Defense who didn't understand leadership, 
who was abusive, who was arrogant, who didn't build a strong team.''
  I know there are more posters. Now, what would have happened in the 
private sector? Is this a way to do business? Is this competence? I 
could go on and on and on.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. If the gentleman from Ohio would yield, 
because the contrast to what is going on in the cesspool that has been 
created by the Republican leadership in Iraq is that if we were in the 
majority in this Congress, we would implement the real security agenda. 
We would focus on making sure that there was a plan in Iraq so that we 
can train the Iraqi troops to take care of the business at hand in Iraq 
on their own and begin to phase out our involvement there.

                              {time}  2045

  Yet there is no plan to do that. There is no timetable. There isn't 
anything coming from this President that would say when a percentage of 
Iraqi troops are prepared, that we are going to pull out X percentage 
of Americans troops. We have to make sure we start focusing on the 
terrorism here at home.
  What happens instead, in the debate we had the other day, where it 
should have been a debate, like you said, it was not a debate, but in 
the basic filibuster, single-subject filibuster in which we were 
afforded no opportunity to present or talk about our alternative, 
instead you had bobblehead after bobblehead on the other side of the 
aisle just come up to the podium and shake their head up and down and 
say exactly what the administration wanted them to say. Then they put 
their votes up on the board and did exactly what was expected of them, 
vote to rubber-stamp the exact same stay-the-course policy that 
Americans clearly have indicated they do not want to continue. I don't 
know what hometown these people are going home to.
  Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can, for just a moment, I hear all this foo-for-
all about we have to stay the course, and we will stand down when they 
stand up.
  It must have been a shock to President Bush, do you remember when he 
made that visit, I think it was about a week ago, to Baghdad? Well, on 
his way home he was discussing the visit with reporters and his 
conversations with Iraqi leaders and he made this statement that was 
reported in the Associated Press: ``There are concerns about our 
commitment in keeping our troops there. They,'' meaning the Iraqis, 
``are worried almost to a person that we will leave before they are 
capable of defending themselves, and I assured them they didn't have to 
worry.'' That is the President.
  But apparently when he said ``almost to a person,'' he is not 
including the president of Iraq and the vice president of Iraq, because 
the Associated Press reported the day after that Iraq's vice president 
had asked President Bush for a timeline, for a timeline, for the 
withdrawal of foreign forces from Iraq.
  Here is the quote: ``Vice President Tarik al-Hashimy, a Sunni, made 
the request during his meeting with Bush on Tuesday when the U.S. 
President made a surprise visit to Iraq. President Talabani, in a 
statement that was released after the meeting, said `I supported him in 
this,' meaning the vice president.''
  So when we hear that we can't give a timeline or a table for when we 
withdraw, Mr. Speaker, the Iraqis are asking us to do it. They are 
asking us, Mr. Speaker.
  So, please, you know, cut the politics. Run away from the politics. 
Let's cut and run from the politics and talk about the truth.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So that way we can get back to talking about 
what Americans' priorities are here; making sure their kids can afford 
college, making sure when they are sick they can go to the doctor, but 
right now they can't because 46 million Americans don't have health 
insurance; making sure that gas prices aren't over $3 a gallon, with 
record profits going to the oil industry, and this Congress, led by the 
Republicans, passing legislation twice last summer with every single 
Republican voting yes and them holding the vote open at

[[Page H4218]]

least 40 minutes to make sure that they could twist enough arms to give 
away subsidies to an oil industry that is already making more money 
than they know what to do with.
  I mean, if you were watching Meet the Press on Sunday and you saw the 
three CEOs of the oil industry just completely not getting that they 
need to be part of this solution, and no one in this Congress, that is 
leading this Congress, except for us, who are making every attempt, no 
one asking the oil industry to step up and invest their revenue from 
their profits into alternative energy resources. It is just absolutely 
unbelievable.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. We don't mind you making a profit. Profit is not a 
dirty word. Go out and make money, hire Americans, this is good news. 
But do it in the national interest.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Exxon-Mobil invested $10 million, and made $30 
billion; $10 million in alternative energy last year. That is what they 
talked about on Meet the Press on Sunday.
  I mean, give me a break. Where is the commitment? Where are the 
priorities?
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. Who was the one gentleman, Lee Raymond, that got 
big time money. I don't know how many millions he made last year. I 
know he got a $2 million tax break.
  Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. $400 million.
  Mr. RYAN of Ohio. I think he made $390-some million. So they are 
paying this guy a $398 million retirement package, $2 million tax 
break, and companies like this are only investing $10 million, when 
they can give them a retirement package of $400 million.
  Newt Gingrich said, just to wrap up, our good friend, Mr. Speaker, 
about the Republican Congress, ``They are seen by the country as being 
in charge of a government that can't function.'' This is your laundry 
list that you just mentioned.
  Mr. Speaker, all of these posters are available on our web site for 
other Members to access at www.housedemocrats.gov/30something. All 
these posters are available.
  We missed our good friend Mr. Meek, and we cheer on the Miami Heat.

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